Brown’s Slim Lead Over Hennessy Headed For A Recount Following Wild State House Campaign

Campaign Manager Tom Gaudett with Marcus Brown on primary day.

Five votes, according to unofficial returns, separates City Councilman Marcus Brown’s lead over State Rep. Jack Hennessy in the predominately North End 127th State House District. A recount is scheduled for next week.

Brown’s intense primary day ground operation rescued him from Hennessy’s absentee ballot harvesting that provided an advantage of more than 100 votes. Unofficial results show Brown ahead 579-574.

Brown won the walk-in vote at all three district precincts: Winthrop, Blackham and Read. Brown’s campaign team led by his partner Tom Gaudett had anticipated the absentee ballot barrage organized largely by Hennessy’s campaign manager City Councilwoman Maria Pereira. Later in the evening the absentee ballots favored Hennessy 262-140. The machine totals provided the slightest cushion, pending a recount.

Political operatives observed the turnout effort by Brown’s camp while Hennessy largely relied on absentee ballots.

Bill Garrett, left, with former State Rep. Chris Caruso in front of Blackham School on primary day. They started State Rep. Jack Hennessy in local politics. Hmm, wonder how they voted?

A lot of second-guessing has infected Hennessy’s campaign camp. The final days of the campaign were filled with dissension and defections that benefited Brown. Campaign workers walked away from the combustible Pereira who clearly is a double-edge sword. You gain here but lose there because she micromanages to the point of exhaustion.

One of the fleeing campaign workers who embraced Brown at the end has six votes in her family. How do you think they voted?

Others, such as two-time mayoral contender Chris Caruso who votes in the district, were ostracized from the campaign. It was Caruso and his long-time friend Bill Garrett who introduced Hennessy to local politics in 2004 when he first captured his seat. Garrett and Hennessy have had a falling out.

It was a bad day for Pereira, the self-styled piranha of city politics–trying to build a political fiefdom in advance of next year’s mayoral cycle–on a number of fronts. She had just about guaranteed Hennessy’s victory. On primary day she was involved in a heated exchange in front of Blackham School with former City Council President Lisa Parziale a district supporter of Hennessy. Not a good idea to piss off a voter in front of a precinct.

A few weeks ago Pereira also made a peculiar appeal, endorsing indicted State Senator Dennis Bradley whom she has publicly vilified for years. Throw your votes to him, she explained, he will be convicted, the seat will open up for Juliemar Ortiz.

Problem with that is Pereira didn’t even bother to circulate petition signatures on Ortiz’s behalf. Ortiz was short of signatures to qualify for the primary ballot led by a snafu. One of her circulators was unqualified for the task, a poor reflection on the candidate who didn’t check the rules, especially that she’s a former journalist who had worked for Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz, the former chief election officials who had supervised the rules.

Pereira’s Bradley appeal fell on deaf ears in her home precinct Hooker School where Herron Gaston, who defeated Bradley on Tuesday, performed well with the walk-in vote. Ortiz campaign operatives on Tuesday were actually pitching for Bradley at some polling locations. Ortiz appears headed for a November ballot spot on the Connecticut Working Families Party line.

She was hoping to face the baggage-ridden Bradley in November and not Gaston. But at what cost to your credibility? Ortiz has cast herself dubiously into the reform mantle of late State Senator Ed Gomes who had no use for Bradley or Pereira.

What would the Gomes family think of Ortiz playing political footsies with Bradley and Pereira? So the so-called reformist is just another political opportunist.

Yes, politics is a crazy business.

Pereira, on primary day, suffered a piranha tooth extraction.

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7 comments

  1. I don’t know about that assessment Lennie. 🙂

    I thought Mario wields the ABs. If that’s the case, Maria best Mario, no 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yaXaB9AaQw

    I get your point on Maria’s dominant style 🙂 But you can walk away as a volunteer on a campaign and still vote for the person. If anyone changed their vote because of Maria’s involvement in Hennessy’s campaign say more about Hennessy, the Maria. JS

    I don’t think Caruso would have generated that many ABs. So Hennessy’s loss would have been larger. If you chose to spin it that way. 🤣

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    1. They could have kept Caruso on board, instead of insulting him and pushing him out. This situation shouldn’t have been one or the other. Campaigns are about relationships and teamwork, not insulting workers, paid staff and volunteers. Caruso would have built a ground game for Hennessy. Pereira didn’t do that and it showed. Brown won all three precincts on the machines.

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  2. Not questing Maria’s ability to lose people. 🙂

    So you say Caruso would have built a ground game? Caruso could have stayed, if he believe in Hennessy, and built that ground game, for the win.

    As I said just because you don’t get along with someone in the campaign doesn’t mean you abandon/betray the person who is running. Maria wasn’t running. Everything/person you mention fell on Hennessy, not Maria. I bet she did the same micromanaging when she was on G2s Camp. 🤣

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVzgXYGjJYs&t=24s

    But let’s compare the ground game and AB’s game in Brown and Bradley. Seems the exact opposites that both go against Maria, depending on how you want to see it. 🙂

    P.S Hennessy seemed to have everything going against him. An 18 years incumbent passed over for the endorsement. His district seemed rigged for Brown’s run. Yet at teh end of the day, Brown only won by, technically, 3 votes, with a recount.

    As for Bradley’s endorsement/loss. As nutty as it was for her to ask people to vote for him, that conversation about Gaston’s arrest was going to be had. Let’s not forget she is the catalyst for Bradley losing his seat. So to say Maria’s endorsement for Bradley fell on deaf ears causing his loss is as bizarre as her endorsement, and because of her micromanagement of Hennessy’s campaign people left and voted for Brown, resulting in Hennessy’s win is equally bizarre. 🙂

    Spin it any way you want. Maria’s the Charlie Sheen of Port politics/this race. 🙂

    BTY her Ground game consisted of a Convoy. 🤣

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqYTX7parRw

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        1. There is always hope. She may see the light someday. She may be angry at something and doesn’t realize it, consuming, creating neuropsychological behavior. Everybody can grow, No?

          Maybe it is part of her she needs to understand that makes her understand more than others where some things don’t matter as much as they are made out to be like the recount. if it changes and Hennessy prevails, Brown will still end up winning that seat. I mean Hennessy would be retiring after this election, Right Marcus? 🙂

          https://www.facebook.com/RalphieMay/videos/5443407932365683

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